Inspire 2 - Vehicle Charging

[Dejan Smaic]

Hi all,

I am seeking some advice as to what inverters people are using to charge their Inspire 2 batteries. I currently use a 750 Watt inverter, which works well for the PHP4 Pro and Inspire 1, but seems to crash when charging the I2 batteries.

Thanks

Dejan

 

[PictoGraphica]

Dejan - take a look here: Charging Inspire 2 In A Car

 

[2nd2non]

Does anyone have an off the shelf inverter the would recommend for I2 battery charging?

 

[TheGrumpster]

I just use a cheap $30 inverter I bought at Walmart. It's total junk, but it works well enough, although I do have to leave the truck running when it is charging batteries.

 

[2nd2non]

I just use a cheap $30 inverter I bought at Walmart. It's total junk, but it works well enough, although I do have to leave the truck running when it is charging batteries.

Which one? How long it take to charge?
I’m thinking about just getting a couple of these for a more efficient DC2DC car charger rather than using an inverter


Battery Charging Remote Controller For DJI Inspire 2 Drone RC 2 in 1 Car Charger | eBay

 

[TheGrumpster]

I'd have to go look at it, as I always leave it under the back seat of my truck. The trouble with Walmart is they often change brands depending on which Chinese junk vendor offers them the best price at any given time, so even if I told you the make and model, you probably couldn't find it. But it is a 400W model, and I have it wired direct to the battery (I have a 100A power distribution panel behind my back seat to run radios and other electrical gear).
As for charging, my flights are typically very short, about 3 minutes or so, and that only pulls about 10% out of a pack. And I follow the ABC rule: Always Be Charging. So after each flight, I put the packs on the charger (man, do I ever hate that **** artsy-fartsy thing - why couldn't they have designed a charger that is functional) and run them up to 100%. And for me, this typically takes about 10 minutes.
Now if I take a set up idle packs (that have self discharged), these are usually about 60%, and that will take about a half-hour, give or take.
Frankly, I think DJI does a horrid job with battery management and charging, or at least, it's nothing like what I learned as best practices for LiPo cells. But if all you want to do is make money, then of course you want your customers to burn through grossly overpriced batteries as quickly as possible, but I digress.
In any event, I don't think you need to spend a lot of money on a vehicular charging solution, but I suppose that depends on your needs. And if you have a newer vehicle (i.e. late model F150), a lot of those already have 400W 100V outlets in them, so no solution is needed.

 

[Mad_angler1]

I am going to build a car charger I think TBH as I have been in need a few times this week my self, my plan was to use Lipo’s and crate a rechargeable station.

In fact I will rebuild my whole custom charger I think and make it both AC and DC, the long winter is now here so I need a project.

 

[2nd2non]

I am going to build a car charger I think TBH as I have been in need a few times this week my self, my plan was to use Lipo’s and crate a rechargeable station.

In fact I will rebuild my whole custom charger I think and make it both AC and DC, the long winter is now here so I need a project.

I think DJI was supposed to come out with an I2 charging station.... but of course they probably moved those engineers to work on the spark or something

 

[TheGrumpster]

I am going to build a car charger

That sounds like a great project. It seems like you would probably want to eliminate the inverter and just go with a DC-DC converter since that would be more efficient. I thought about this, but I couldn't come up with a solution for less than a few hundred dollars, which is why I went with the cheapo Walmart solution.
It also seems to me that it would make sense to re-do the DJI interface part of the charger, as I often have a lot of trouble getting the batteries to always plug in reliably. I seem to recall you have already addressed this issue in another thread.
For that matter, I think there is another thread on here from a while back where a guy showed a DC-DC solution, but there always seemed to me like something was fishy about that, I simply can't recall.